Unbelievable problems...

[Suraknar]

Nice posts all.

VersusAllOdds...

Your mention of Shinano, put a smile in my Face, this is a province name I will never forget! LOL Epic Epic battles in Shinano (STW).

I am also one to dislike this DLC marketing approach. Because instead of adding value, they simply take value out of the release product only to sell in parts...

I think the big plan with Rome II is to sell Playable Factions, some people report that many factions are under developed in terms of unit variety/diversity...so I would not be surprised if that is their plan.

On the other hand, over at TWCenter some people already unlocked all Factions to be playable... So not sure how all that will fit together. Again I simply feel it is a bad marketing approach with a game that has such a following (it has been over 10 years imagine), AND a modding community...

It feels like they are selling us oranges without Vitamin C inside ;) And we have to buy the Vitamin C separably.


Now for the AI, I think it will be addressed as are all the various Bugs, for that I have no doubts. Rome II will, when fixed be a great game to play for a very long time.

I absolutely LOVE the revamp of the strategic map play and all the little details revolving around t. Heck even the economy is, for once Great for the pace of the game (and my style of play).

The only thing I miss in this one, is the ability to have a Custom Formation in battles. I mean, as much as I loved the formation Types in STW, in Rome and also in Rome II I like to make my own formations with units on deployment...

I am hoping it is a bug (or that I am missing something), but the formation I group the units with simply does not hold...I have to choose one of the preset formations for the units to hold their positions...

Also I do agree with the sentiment that diplomacy is missing something in Rome II.



Cheers!

[Shaitan]

...
The only thing I miss in this one, is the ability to have a Custom Formation in battles. I mean, as much as I loved the formation Types in STW, in Rome and also in Rome II I like to make my own formations with units on deployment...

I am hoping it is a bug (or that I am missing something), but the formation I group the units with simply does not hold...I have to choose one of the preset formations for the units to hold their positions...

Also I do agree with the sentiment that diplomacy is missing something in Rome II.



Cheers!

Did you try Ctrl+G?

[Myth]

Play with Patch 3. If it's too easy, start with a facion other than Rome which is by design - overpowered when controlled by a human player. Play on Legendary. If you take a 1 settlement faction in the middle of freakin' nowhere that doesn't have wine, olive oil, glassware and tons of grain at it's disposal (resources and upgrading minor settlements to produce them is the best way to get lots of money in the early game. More resources = more trade and more factions willing to sign trade agreements = more money) you will see how difficult the game could be.

Even in my 130 turn Rome game I had some sneaksie Gauls using mutliple agents to incite rebellion in my province, hoping that if the rebels took it they could come and liberate it and i'd let it slide. Seriously, that is some next level stuff and a trick usually people ( @Andres) do!

Starting as the Avernii has shown me that R2 can and will challenge you. A 1 settlement faction with 2-3 settlement provinces around it (mostly 2 settlement) where your early game units consist of low morale levies (unlike the disciplined principes/legionaires/pretorians). You can't autoresolve because you will get smeared and your low defence and armour values mean you can at most, hope for a phyrric victory. So you must lead, and lead well! The AIs all clump up to fight you if they tink you overextend. You don't have money to throw around into province development and you can't afford liberties with the tech research because if you stay at spear warband and slinger level sooner or later someone will come with his elites and crush you. Yet you need to research architecture and fields too...

As far as battles are concerned the AI is OK. It doesn't let you go inside a city easily and beware if they have boiling oil. If it has access to high morale units and the fight drags out it can really exploit gaps in your broken down lines to flank you.

If you don't beleive me, pick a fight with Sparta early on. Their infantry has enough morale for a battle to last almost 20 minutes and then you will see how they encircle isolated units and shred them. You will never scoff at Heroes of Sparta again.

[fallen851]

Play with Patch 3. If it's too easy, start with a facion other than Rome which is by design - overpowered when controlled by a human player. Play on Legendary. If you take a 1 settlement faction in the middle of freakin' nowhere that doesn't have wine, olive oil, glassware and tons of grain at it's disposal (resources and upgrading minor settlements to produce them is the best way to get lots of money in the early game. More resources = more trade and more factions willing to sign trade agreements = more money) you will see how difficult the game could be.

I want you to think about what you are saying: Don't play the game to win, play it to lose and then you'll see how difficult it can be.

I agree that the game CAI is getting somewhat better, but RTW II is no different than any other TW I've played in that the game is downright easy. Be nice if they had defined AI profiles. Like this faction never techs much, it just produces low level units and takes territory. Once it has X amount of terrority it stops and gets rich, then hires a lot of Mercs to supplement it's army and keeps expanding (merc prices need to come down for this to work). And another faction techs and turtles until they reach this milestone, then take X amount of territory and then continue up the tech tree until they reach another milestone, and so on. These are very simple AI profiles, and while I'm sure CA tried to something along these lines (probably far more advanced) it is just doesn't seem to work.

If every TW game, the AI just seems to try to do everything, and ends up doing nothing well.

[ReluctantSamurai]

If every TW game, the AI just seems to try to do everything, and ends up doing nothing well.

Amen to this. Scripting may be used now, or not, but if done in a logical manner, might help point the AI in a direction that allows a particular faction to gain strength and development. I remember the scripts from R1 like "Fortified Stalin" or "Craftsman Caesar", etc. which influenced what temples got built and what troops got created, but did little to affect aggressiveness, which IMHO is one of the biggest shortcomings of TW AI's.

[Myth]

I want you to think about what you are saying: Don't play the game to win, play it to lose and then you'll see how difficult it can be.

Where did I say that ? I said: play on the highest difficulty level and don't take an easy, large and rich starting faction like Rome if you want to be challenged.

I'm tired of people who played a Medium campaign with Rome on patch 1, loaded their arses off, and now come back to tell me how dumb the AI was and how bugged the game is.

[easytarget]

Honestly, you need to seriously re-think your point here.

If you think you're making a valid argument by telling players how they should play the game, and make the absolutely absurd suggestion they shouldn't play Rome in a game called Rome 2, you've gone completely off the rail.

[antisocialmunky]

Honestly, you need to seriously re-think your point here.

If you think you're making a valid argument by telling players how they should play the game, and make the absolutely absurd suggestion they shouldn't play Rome in a game called Rome 2, you've gone completely off the rail.

Please calm down guys, I'm pretty sure he was just saying: "If you want a more challenging game pick a harder faction or harder settings on the latest patch." Rome is the intro faction so it has a strong starting position, I don't think you can say its harder than Parthia or one of the other factions.

[Myth]

Honestly, you need to seriously re-think your point here.

If you think you're making a valid argument by telling players how they should play the game, and make the absolutely absurd suggestion they shouldn't play Rome in a game called Rome 2, you've gone completely off the rail.

I am not telling players how to play the game. I myself have an ongoing Rome campaign. I am telling the whiners to quit their whining if they haven't dared fire up Legendary and try another faction. It's the same AI but with less starting bonuses for the player and with a more equal playing ground unit wise, it's much more difficult. And the inability to load (for the most part, you can reload battles if they start going south) you are forced to adopt a large scale strategy for your lands.

[Suraknar]

Did you try Ctrl+G?

No I did not before my post, I discovered it a few hours later :P I have been playing many of the latest games in the series solely through Mouse...but then it hit me to check the Keyboard Controls...Yet, thanks for the Reply nevertheless appreciate.

And It was really something I was missing, I am so glad now, as I can do custom formations to fit my tactics!

Cheers :)

[Shaitan]

No I did not before my post, I discovered it a few hours later :P I have been playing many of the latest games in the series solely through Mouse...but then it hit me to check the Keyboard Controls...Yet, thanks for the Reply nevertheless appreciate.

And It was really something I was missing, I am so glad now, as I can do custom formations to fit my tactics!

Cheers :)

You can also do this via mouse. There is a pull down (or rather pull up) menu. But it's much faster to use the keys.

[antisocialmunky]

Formation units are stupidly broken because they will break formation to turn the whole unit to face the attacker. This makes is stupidly easy for the AI who tends to do a last minute swerve into your lines to screw up your line and get flanking bonuses on everything. It really hurts phalanx units. Additionally formation units suck at surrounding enemy units because they seem to be unable to wrap so the optimal defensive deployment now seems to be a line made up of short squares rather than multiple lines of thing units. Now battles tend to become massive moshpits compared to even shogun because of this crap.

[Azi Tohak]

The game dearly needed more play testing. However, I believe it's getting better. Whether that's because of CA or the brilliance of the Radious mod, I can't say, but I'm enjoy the game a great deal.

Azi

[Sp4]

I never use the ingame formations and unless you can save your own custom formations, I think I will never touch to buttons because half the time, the formations may have been a good idea at the time and in real life but in the game, all they're achieving is a confused me. Battles are very very simplified anyways and don't really need fancy formations and at the speed they are happening, I doubt there is a single answer to everything formation anyways.

[Bramborough]

I never use the ingame formations and unless you can save your own custom formations, I think I will never touch to buttons because half the time, the formations may have been a good idea at the time and in real life but in the game, all they're achieving is a confused me. Battles are very very simplified anyways and don't really need fancy formations and at the speed they are happening, I doubt there is a single answer to everything formation anyways.

Yep. I used to tinker with my formations during deployment phase a lot. After a while, I started noticing that the default formation into which the game plops my army was getting closer and closer to what I was doing myself. Now pretty much the only change I make is position of my few spear units (I included them in composition mainly for flank protection against cavalry end-runs vs my siege arty...the game never puts them there).

[Sp4]

Yep. I used to tinker with my formations during deployment phase a lot. After a while, I started noticing that the default formation into which the game plops my army was getting closer and closer to what I was doing myself. Now pretty much the only change I make is position of my few spear units (I included them in composition mainly for flank protection against cavalry end-runs vs my siege arty...the game never puts them there).

Playing as Rome, the game puts anything ranged into the first line, which is fine, spears into the second and then melee into the third and forth if there's enough with cav behind and on the flanks. The only thing I change is moving all cav to one side and the spears behind my melee to guard flanks.

[antisocialmunky]

I never use the ingame formations and unless you can save your own custom formations, I think I will never touch to buttons because half the time, the formations may have been a good idea at the time and in real life but in the game, all they're achieving is a confused me. Battles are very very simplified anyways and don't really need fancy formations and at the speed they are happening, I doubt there is a single answer to everything formation anyways.

I expect a line of units to stay in a line. It would be better if formation was just stripped off everything but pikemen so making a line of units doesn't lead to a ton of sideways facing hoplites

[Sp4]

Sideways facing hoplites?

[bthizle1]

I myself am amazed (and not in a very positive way). Naturally having been a TW fan since something like 10 years old playing the original Shogun for hours on end and having played every TW game since fairly avidly, I was well aware of the fact that CA doesn't usually release a " decent" vanilla game, from my point of view at least. I was considering holding off on purchasing it until it'd been out for some 6 months to a year (patches, and more so mods), but I was not sure if I'd even have access to a computer in that time frame so I made the purchase and have played a campaign as Pontus with the beta 3 patch. I tried to be fair in my judgment, and tried convincing myself that although I was not too keen of the new "style" and rather lackluster indepthness as it seemed, but I just couldn't do it and decided to make a brief list while playing only some say 50 turns of the pros and cons. My con list was immensely larger than that of my pros.

To name a few cons:
Handful of crashes, enemies reinforcing a city from sea landed then didn't even move from beach, the morale is horrible, the throwing of javelins is absurd, no family tree, the building method, overly fast paced battles, poor movement on battle field, not being able to see garrison of city even with spy without having to specifically look at the structures one by one, autocalc is horribly done, AI in general is absurd (nothing new).

A few pros:
Men look winded when fatigued, many interact-able factions......really nothing else I can think of that I was actually impressed with.

And of the cons those were just a few and from a very brief campaign as well. I expect this from CA at this point, but I just feel that in particular with this game they have really created a game that at least in my opinion is simply not my cup of tea and that being said TW is my favorite game series of all time (followed by a handful of paradox titles).

[nafod]

Playing beta patch 3 overall it's a game I can play, but with the other demands on my time it doesn't warrant much attention.

Going back to Shogun 2 I just feel the game was much more finished, as in, it possessed all the bells and whistles, and polish, of a delightful title. Rome 2 lacks all of this. It's functional, it plays ok, but that's it.

Even going back to Rome Total War I feel the game hasn't really improved other than visually.

I wouldn't discourage anyone from purchasing it, and I don't want my money back, but I feel like I've been sold another ETW.

[Sp4]

not being able to see garrison of city even with spy without having to specifically look at the structures one by one

You can actually mouse over the little garrison icon when you select a town (it's a tiny icon that sometimes seems like it wants to hide behind the bottom UI) and see even the exact numbers of men left in your or any settlement's garrison army. It does not work for navy though I think.

[Kamakazi]

There is a reason I have 451 hours clocked on TWS2. The Diplomacy is complex if at time irritating. The combat is realistic and exciting and over all the game is graphically stunning. When I heard that TWR2 was coming out I almost died of excitement. I figured after the shining pinnacle of S2 that R2 would be better and far more detailed. I have to say that im disappointed. All diplomacy if for the most part GONE. Graphically it Is a step backwards. Im playing on highest settings and all I get a bland models of the same soldier over and over. Combat is broken I have battle time limits off because I like the full win or die feel of it. But when the AI attacks from the sea or with big armies at least one but up to half of the units it uses NEVER MOVE. So I have to do 1 of 2 things. A quit the battle and reload my quick save with a time limit or slowly run my troops back and fourth through static unfighting units to win. Not to mention half the time people just die for no reason at all. What happened to the cool fluid fights with epic kills like in TWS2? I want to see personal battles down to the last roll or parry.

Overall I think Rome 2 is a step backwards not one to the front of the series. Its still a decent game and ill clod my way to at least one win... But if nothing gets fixed soon im going back to TWS2

[AntiDamascus]

I'm not gonna lie. I did not like Shogun 2. Every city I took was way too easy. Is it better than R2 to me? I don't really know yet. But compared to other games I've played more of, Rome I and M2, I like those way better. I guess it's just funny watching everyone post about how much they loooooved S2 and I just kinda shrug my shoulders at it.

[Hooahguy]

I'm not gonna lie. I did not like Shogun 2. Every city I took was way too easy. Is it better than R2 to me? I don't really know yet. But compared to other games I've played more of, Rome I and M2, I like those way better. I guess it's just funny watching everyone post about how much they loooooved S2 and I just kinda shrug my shoulders at it.

Agreed. I also was very bored with the game, only had 3 hours in it before I had to put it down. You want to talk about cookie-cutter? I mean come on, Shogun 2 couldnt get any more cookie cutter. Everyone was Japanese so everyone had the same swordsmen, same spearmen, and a small variation in some elite units, and even then it was primarily just their banners and names. Why should I pick the Oda clan, or the Chosokabe, besides some random faction bonuses like better farms or swordsmen? I mean come on. Taking a town/castle was the same thing over and over, little variation. And dont mention the incredibly gamey climbing the walls mechanic. Why bother with rams or whatever when you can just climb the walls. Kinda similar problem with the torches in R2TW, but I think its worse in S2TW. And personally I prefer the graphics in R2 but thats just me.

[Sp4]

If your R2 is looking worse than S2 it is because you don't have the power to run R2. It downgrades the graphics until you can by default. I guess S2 did that too but it was less demanding. Even on medium settings, R2 looks better than S2.